But it set me to thinking about just what it is we mean when we say 'funky'. I'm sure there's plenty of erudite definitions all over the web from people who claim insight on the matter, but I suggest that, rather than attempt to define it, we illustrate it with examples.

So, in the spirit of fun (no dissing, play nice) let's have your nominations for favourite funky stuff.

Someone on BBC4's recent doc on the history of funk said something along the lines of funk being the sound of all the instruments acting like the drum and I think "Cold Sweat" is a very good example of this (mind you, that programme failed to even mention The Meters!)

Funk, in the sense that it is being discussed here, boils down to the expertise and panache with which polyrhythms are set in juxtaposition with each other.

Of course, not all polyrhythmic activity is funky, otherwise Terry Riley and Steve Reich would be funkmeisters, but polyrhythms derived and adapted from African music are generally considered to be the, um, thang…

If you can listen through the chip pan noise to early pre-war country blues you might hear a guitarist such as Charley Patton deploying as many as three rhythmic patterns simultaneously with one guitar. Robert Johnson simplified things a bit later by juxtaposing duplets against triplets and thereby creating what became codified as the Chicago shuffle, which later, in the hands of Chuck Berry, became rock'n'roll.

The idea of treating all the instruments in a full scale r'n'b band as if they were drums was, I think, James Brown's with "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" in 1964, but the aforementioned Professor Longhair had been blending Cuban rhythms with African-American rhythms as far back as the late 40s (to say nothing of Dizzy Gillespie!)

Melodically, funk seems to have settled around the sound of and extensions off a dominant 9th chord - with chromatic sidestepping motions in both directions. (i.e., a chord of, say, G9 can be approached from either Ab9 above, or Fsharp9 below). Jimi Hendrix upped the stakes by introducing the chord of the sharp 9, this was quickly adopted by James Brown and became the signature sound of funk in the early 70s. Miles Davis liked it too, but he had his own fiendish agenda.

But I think, as Ted and I once agreed, you have to be black, and American. Or do you?

Agreed, but the thrust here was to posit funk as an assertion of uncompromising black identity, and to make that case you have to nominate a contrasting black music which was less overtly political and keen to court white audiences. It's a reductive argument, but hey, it's television.

Mind you The Supremes At The Copa was a real album & it's unlikely that P-Funk At The Copa was ever going to happen.

there is even funk in folk. The band 'Flook' often achieved it. Nic Jones and Martin Carthy occasionally have achieved it. Yes, I reaIise some readers may find this hard to credit or a controversial claim, I can supply concrete examples, but I have other fish to fry right now